About

The CGAP-Ford Foundation Graduation Program is a global effort to understand how safety nets, livelihoods, and microfinance can be sequenced to create pathways for the poorest to graduate out of extreme poverty, adapting a methodology used by BRAC in Bangladesh. The CGAP-Ford Foundation Graduation Program is helping to implement ten Graduation Pilots in eight countries, in partnership with local organizations.

The graduation model targets the poorest—people who have no assets and are chronically food insecure. The graduation program combines support for immediate needs with longer term investments in training, financial services, and business development so that within two years ultra poor people are equipped to help themselves “graduate” out of extreme poverty. This approach was originally developed by BRAC in Bangladesh. Over the past five years BRAC’s Ultra-Poor programs has reached 800,000 households. Over the past five years CFPR/TUP has reached around 300,000 ultra-poor households. BRAC estimates that over 75 percent of them are currently food secure and managing sustainable economic activities.

Since 2006, the CGAP-Ford Foundation Graduation Program has adapted BRAC’s experience to other countries and contexts. Ten graduation pilots are underway, in Haiti, India (with Bandhan, SKS, and Trickle Up), Pakistan, Honduras, Peru, Ethiopia, Yemen and Ghana. The ten pilots are implemented through partnerships between financial service providers, nongovernmental organizations, and government units. Several of the pilots are measuring the program’s effects on people’s lives through rigorous randomized impact evaluations and qualitative research.

Contact Us

For more information, please contact Syed Hashemi or Aude de Montesquiou.